On May 4, 3:19 pm, Rookie_Remodeler wrote:
On May 1, 10:07 am, "john"
wrote:

Is there a specific , legal way to try to contact the seller of a house
directly and bypassing the realtor? can i just look his number up in the
phone book and call him? is that ok to do?

I remember that when I bought my first house even though there was a
realtor involved it was me and the seller who did almost everything.
Because I did not have a "buyer's agent" the freaking Remax realtor
wanted to take the inexistent realtor's share as well and got ****ed
when I said NO, that I would do my part of the deal. She tried to
sabotage the deal by delaying the offer negotiations between me and
the seller, who agreed in discounting the "buyer's agent" fee from the
price.

So, if I understand this correctly, the real estate agent did get the
full commission, (6%?), even though no other broker was involved. And
the money for the commission, as usual, came out of the sellers
pocket. Which, unless I missed something, from the final price
standpoint to you as buyer is the same as you just walking in and
saying, "Here's my offer of $XXX, because that's what I'm willing to
pay and think the house is worth." But the second approach doesn't
get you involved in a nasty little dispute over who is entitled to
what, which apparently didn't work.

After you went into this by trying to interfere in the contract
between the realtor and the seller, and reduce the agents commission,
why were you surprised that the real estate agent was less interested
in dealing with you?



So, since I had gone to the house directly and the seller
introduced me to the agent later (as good ethics dictate)

It's not a question of ethics. The seller is legally obligated via a
listing contract to pay the real estate agent a commission. So, it
wouldn't make any sense to not have you go through the broker and use
some of the services the seller is paying for.


the agent
showed to have none and the deal might not have gone through if I had
not talked with the seller directly.

A guy I know also had similar problem. But his was that the realtor
wanted the house for a friend of hers and was delaying to show his
offer to the seller. She only showed the offer (which was accepted
by the seller) after he spoke with the seller directly and threatened
her with a lawsuit.

So, in cases like the above I do not see any problem in talking
directly to the homeowner. If it is just to "have a price cut",
absolutely not.

I'll bet if you hadn't tried to cut the agent's commission upfront,
you wouldn;t have had all these problems.